Presidential Panel Discussion: Women in Leadership
Wednesday, April 15, 2026
Stony Brook University, Main Campus
Student Activities Center, Sidney Gelber Auditorium 11 am–12:15 pm
Join President Andrea Goldsmith and a panel of influential leaders from across business, academia, government and non-profits for an engaging discussion highlighting their experiences along with how to lead in times of disruption and change. Tickets are required.
Panelists
Karen Persichilli Keogh
Karen Persichilli Keogh serves as Secretary to Governor Kathy Hochul, the highest-ranking appointed position in state government. She brings over two decades of operational and managerial experience to the administration. For seven years, she served on then-Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's senior staff as New York State Director and campaign manager for her successful 2006 Senate re-election.
Keogh managed the then-Senator’s statewide staff, and played a vital role in the aftermath of 9/11, including health funding for first responders. She managed U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand's transition from the House of Representatives to the U.S. Senate and served as a senior political advisor to Mayor Michael Bloomberg's 2009 campaign.
Before joining the Hochul Administration in 2021, she served as the Head of Global Philanthropy at JPMorgan Chase & Co., where she managed $2 billion in global philanthropic investments. She joined JPMorgan Chase in 2010 as Managing Director and Head of State and Local Government Relations.
She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a board member of the Diamonstein-Spielvogel Foundation and the East Hampton Trails Preservation Society. She has served on a number of non-profit boards including the Stony Brook Foundation, iFoster, Invisible Hands and an ex-officio trustee of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
Keogh, affectionately known as KPK, was born and raised on Long Island. She earned a Bachelor’s of Science from Stony Brook University and a Master's of Science from Columbia University.
Maria Klawe
Maria Klawe joined Math for America as president in late 2023 after a 17-year term as Harvey Mudd College’s fifth president.
Prior to joining HMC, she served as dean of engineering and professor of computer science at Princeton University. Klawe joined Princeton from the University of British Columbia where she served in various roles from 1988 to 2002. Before her time at UBC, Klawe spent eight years with IBM Research in California and two years at the University of Toronto.
She received her PhD (1977) and BSc (1973) in mathematics from the University of Alberta. Klawe is a member of the boards of Phenome Health and the nonprofits, Museum of Mathematics, and the Institute for Computational and Experimental Research in Mathematics. She has also served as a founding advisory board member of Parity.org, a fellow for the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and is the chair-elect for the Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences and a trustee Emerita for the Simons Laufer Mathematical Sciences Institute. Klawe was ranked 17 on Fortune’s 2014 list of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders.
Barbara G. Novick
Barbara G. Novick was a co-founder of BlackRock, and transitioned from vice chairman to senior advisor as of February 2021. From the inception of BlackRock in 1988 to 2008, Ms. Novick headed the Global Client Group and oversaw global business development, marketing and client service across equity, fixed income, liquidity, alternative investment and real estate products for institutional and individual investors and their intermediaries worldwide. In 2009, Novick established BlackRock's Global Public Policy Group to provide a voice for investors; from 2018 to 2020, she additionally oversaw BlackRock's Investment Stewardship team. Prior to founding BlackRock, Novick worked at First Boston and at Morgan Stanley.
Novick serves on the boards of Intel, New York Life Insurance Company, Jewish Communal Relations Council (JCRC), and on the Growth Curve Capital Advisory Board. In addition, Novick serves on the boards of Peterson Institute for International Economics, and Committee on Capital Markets Regulation, and on the advisory boards of Center for Financial Stability and Millstein Center for Global Markets and Corporate Ownership. Novick previously served on the board of Cornell University (2012-2020), and served as both treasurer and trustee of Westchester Jewish Center (1994 - 2012), and coached in the Westchester Youth Soccer League (1999 - 2015).
Novick has received numerous awards recognizing her contributions to asset management and to the professional development of women in finance, and her active involvement in her community, including: Fixed Income Analyst Society's Hall of Fame, UJA Federation's Gustave Levy Award, Chief Investment Officers' Pioneer Award, 100 Women in Hedge Fund's Effecting Change Award, Women in Finance's Trailblazer Award, and Council for Economic Education's Visionary Award. Novick earned a BA degree, cum laude, in economics from Cornell University in 1981.
Marilyn Simons
Marilyn Simons is a leader and advocate in the not-for-profit scientific community. She is a co-founder and chair of the Simons Foundation, whose mission is to advance the frontiers of research in math and science. Since 2019, Simons has served as chair of the board of trustees of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory—an outstanding U.S. research facility specializing in molecular biology and genetics. She is a member of the boards of trustees of the National Museum of Mathematics, Rockefeller University, and the Simons-Laufer Mathematical Sciences Institute. Simons also oversees the philanthropic work of the MJS Foundation, a private family foundation in New York focused on community programs.
Simons has many ties to SUNY Stony Brook. She received a B.A. (‘74) and Ph.D. (‘84) in economics from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. In 2014, Simons founded the Stony Brook Women’s Leadership Council, a mentoring program for outstanding undergraduate women at Stony Brook University, where she currently serves as the council’s chair. In 2024 she joined the Stony Brook Foundation Board of Trustees and is currently a member of the executive committee.
Anne-Marie Slaughter
Anne-Marie Slaughter is the CEO of New America and a globally recognized scholar, policy innovator, and public leader. She served as the first woman director of policy planning at the U.S. State Department, Dean of Princeton's School of Public and International Affairs, and a professor at Harvard Law School.
The author of five books, including The Chessboard and the Web: Strategies of Connection in a Networked World (2017) and Unfinished Business: Women, Men, Work, Family (2015), she is also a columnist for Project Syndicate and a contributing editor at the Financial Times. Her 2012 Atlantic article “Why Women Still Can't Have It All” sparked a global conversation about gender, work, and caregiving. Slaughter has received numerous honors, including France’s Legion of Honor and multiple honorary doctorates, and is regularly named among Washington’s most powerful women for her leadership at the intersection of ideas, policy, and practice.